Confessions of a perfectionist

Sometimes I think that being a bit of a perfectionist does not bode well with motherhood.  For example...

I decided it would be fun to make Halloween sugar cookies with the kids today.  I had this vision of us rolling out, cutting, and decorating these adorable, yummy cookies.  And we did.  However, I forgot about that perfectionist thing. 

#1. Mixing.  Natalie wanted to add all the ingredients to the bowl, which I let her do.  But I did find myself panicking on the inside a bit because she kept coming awefully close to spilling a bit outside of the bowl.  Heaven forbid.  I managed to calm myself down and let her work. 

#2.  Rolling.  Natalie wanted to roll out the dough.  She even had her own little rolling pin.  Sure, no problem.  Until I watched her start to roll.  She was trying so hard, but it was so lumpy and bumpy and getting paper thin in places while others were still an inch thick.  I couldn't handle it.  I very nicely told her that I would roll out the dough for her and she could cut.

#3.  Cutting.  Kelton decided to join in at this point.  I showed them how to wiggle the cookie cutter just a bit after they cut the cookies so that it separates the cookie from the dough a bit.  Well, Kelton got slightly carried away with the wiggling part.  Alarms started going off in my head because the cookies were getting a bit distorted.  Because everyone knows that you can't have lopsided sugar cookies.  Heaven forbid.  I tried to calm myself down.  Then Natalie placed a cookie cutter right in the center of a large area of nice smooth dough and cut out a cookie instead of placing the cookie cutter at the edge and fitting it in as closely as possible to the other cookies.  I think I actually gasped out loud a bit.  She didn't do it again.

#4.  Frosting.  I knew this one was going to be trouble.  So I prepared the best I could.  Frosting sugar cookies is hard.  I'm not even that great at it.  And I must say, Natalie did a pretty good job.  I was thankful that Kelton didn't want to try.  But I will say that when I would look over and see this...

it would take every ounce of self control to not reach over and smooth it out with a little more frosting.  But I never did.  I just took really deep breaths and, well... tried not to look.  Oh, and this cookie is a haunted house that Natalie wanted to decorate like a candy corn.

So there you have it.  I am crazy.  I need rehab for perfectionist mothers trying to raise kids who will hopefully not pick up their crazy mother's perfectionist ways.  :)

We really did have a lot of fun making cookies.  Natalie was very proud of her creations.  It is fun to see how much she likes to create things--just like me.  She loves making things and painting and things like that.  Which is why she had so much fun decorating cookies.  (And she had no idea that her mother was employing deep breathing techniques right next to her in the meantime. Kidding.  Sort of.)

Here are our finished cookies--which I may or may not have eaten like four of tonight.  We have spider webs, ghosts (which are sideways in the picture) moons that look a lot like happy bananas, candy corns, pumpkins, cats, haunted houses, and a couple of maple leaves.

Weekend trip

Last weekend we went to Snowflake just for some time away.  We had a lot of fun enjoying some cooler weather (including snow in Show Low).  Natalie and Kelton had tons of fun playing outside with cousins all day at Grandma and Grandpa Webb's.  On Saturday, Nate and I went golfing with my dad and Melanie and Sean.  Then on Monday before we came home, Nate and I went back to the golf course with my dad and we took Natalie and Kelton with us.  They had a lot of fun coming with us.  Kelton refused to ride in the cart for about two holes (until he got tired) and wanted to walk right along side grandpa.  Natalie had fun driving (steering) the golf cart.  I'm not too excited for her to turn sixteen.  Luckily I have a decade to prepare.  Oh, and Nate got his first ever birdie.  It was on a par three hole.

Kelton kept saying the funniest things while we were there.  Here are a few that I can remember.

(while in the car--driving somewhere)
Natalie: "Mom, can we get a pumpkin and carve it?"
Me:  "Yes, we will get a pumpkin when it gets closer to Halloween."
Kelton:  "Halloween??  I like Halloween.  I just love candy!"

Here's the setup for this next one.  Kelton had been jumping on the trampoline with a metal tent spike.  I might insert here that this was not on my watch.  I got home after the injury.  The personal injury attorney was on duty.  (Hmm, I wonder if the packaging on the tent expressly states that tent spikes are not to be used while jumping on trampolines.  Hahaha.  You never know... my blowdryer instructions say to not operate while sleeping.)  So I walked in to find Nate in the bathroom cleaning up a very scared Kelton who had a little cut on his forehead, right between the eyes.  Nate got the blood all wiped up and we went downstairs to find a band aid.  Kelton still looked very scared and sad.  You know that look kids get when they are terrified--he had it.  A few minutes later, I found a band aid and cut it down to size to fit between Kelton's eyes.  I very carefully placed it over the cut.  Then Kelton got up and walked over to the back door, opened it, and in the most exuberant voice, called out,

"Natalie!  I'm all fixed now!!!" 

He then sprinted out the door to continue playing on the trampoline with everyone.  It was then that I realized that I have severely underestimated the power of band aids.

Then one afternoon I walked into a room where Kelton was.  He came up to me and asked,

"Where's DVD?"
Me: "DVD?"
Kelton: "Yes, where is DVD?"
Me: (confused) "Do you want to watch a movie?"
Slight pause... (I could see the wheels turning in his head because he realized he said the wrong thing and was trying to figure out how to fix it.)
Kelton: "Where's... Steee...V-D?"
Me:  "Are you looking for Stevie?  Your cousin?"
Kelton:  "Yes.  Where's Stevie?"

This boy cracks me up.  Lately he is having troubles with any word that ends in the "vee" sound.  For example... the television is a TVD.  In his mind, V must always be followed by D.  As in DVD.  And Stee-V-D.

I love this little boy. 

(You can see his little cut in this picture--it has been healing for almost a week and is not much more than a little red mark now.)



Decorating walls and cakes

We have lived in this house for six years.  I can hardly believe it has been that long.  But now, after six years, I finally decorated my kicthen wall.  About two years ago, we painted the walls red and now I finally have things hanging there.  For a long time, I just didn't know how to decorate it.  Then, after we painted, I knew what I wanted to do, but didn't (and still don't) have the money to do it.  I wanted a very large, nicely framed, black and white picture of the temple.  Anyway, this is what I have come up with, and I love it!  My kitchen is black and red, so I think this black and white arrangement looks good.  I got the metal sign at a craft fair, I made the magnetic picture frames, and the temple picture is on a stretched canvas.  And taking pictures of pictures is pretty hard--the flash washed out the temple picture a bit and the pictures aren't that crooked.

On Friday night I did a baby shower for someone in my ward.  She is actually my brother's wife's brother's wife.  Haha... confused??  :)  Her husband's sister is my sister-in-law (married to my brother).  Got it?  It's not really that complicated but I guess it is easy enought to just say that we aren't really related but we share some of the same neices and nephews.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  It rained like crazy--even for here during monsoon season.  It gave some added meaning to the term "baby shower."  Some people actually called and said they turned around and went home because they thought they were going to get washed away or killed by all the lightning strikes.  I made a cake for the shower that matched the invitation.  Sadly, I forgot my sister-in-law's advice (yes, the same one as mentioned above) about doing frozen buttercream transfers and words.  Since you flip the finished image over, you have to make the transfer in mirror image.  Since I didn't do that, my finished cake looked like this...

Oops.

Luckily, I discovered my mistake with enough time left to redo the letters (correctly this time) and put them over the top of the backwards ones.

30 on the 30th!

We celebrated Nate's 30th birthday on August 30th.  Since 30 is kind of a monumental birthday and it just happened to be on the 30th, I wanted to make the day extra special for Nate.  Per tradition, the kids and I woke him up (at 6:00 a.m.) singing "Happy Birthday" and had him open his presents.  I gave him Bucky Balls (those little magnetic balls that you make shapes and stuff with--intriguingly frustrating little boogers if you ask me) and new pillows and nice sheets for our bed.  I had Natalie, with a little help from Kelton, draw 30 pictures and I laminated them and made them into a book. 

Nate had to go to work, but I still wanted him to have a good birthday.  So I made 30 cinnamon rolls and took them to him at work to share with everyone.  Then we went to Chick-fil-A for lunch.  Then I gave him a book I put together that had 30 birthday wishes from 30 different people.  It turned out really good and I think he really liked it.  Later that night we took the whole family to Chilis for Nate's birthday dinner.  When we got home we put candles on Nate's birthday banana cream pie and sang "Happy Birthday" again.  I think Nate would agree that it turned out to be a pretty good 30th birthday.

Cantaloupe

I got a cantaloupe out of our garden!  Well, actually, three.  But two of them were hardly big enough to count.  And the "big" one was smaller than anything you would ever find in a store.  It was maybe a bit bigger than a large softball.  But still.  I am pretty excited about this.  My garden has not done wonderfully... I didn't get a single cucumber.  I had two start to grow, but then they withered away when they were about and inch long.  The plants are now dead.  I got a few strawberries and a few potatoes.  And a bunch of tiny, skinny carrots.  (the kids thought they were pretty awesome and loved eating them)  My normal tomato plants (Celebrities) yeilded about 20 golf ball sized tomatoes, which Nate said were pretty tasteless.  The cherry tomatoes did pretty good.  But, I have been in the midst of a tomato worm war.  I think I have finally won...  But recently, even my cherry tomatoes have been about the size of pinto beans.  I guess I wasn't expecting my small square foot garden to produce mini produce.  SO...I was pretty happy with a cantaloupe that was maybe 2/3 the size of a store bought one.  Maybe next year I will double the size of my garden and get fruits and vegetables that are twice as big.

Have you ever seen cantaloupe that golden yellow in the store before?  I haven't.

I have also never bought a cantaloupe in the store that has such a little amount of green rind around the outside.  Which is why, I'm sure, it was so golden looking on the outside.

This is the cut up cantaloupe from the big one.  Kelton is holding one of the small cantaloupes.  Each of those small ones cut up into eight little pieces.

More from the mouth of Natalie

Last night during dinner we had a typical monsoon storm roll through.  It caused a couple of 10 second brown-outs.  We all thought we were going to lose power.  So Natalie asked me:

"Who makes the power go out?"

Me:  "Ummmm, well... the lightning and the storm."

Natalie: "Oh.  I thought it was Jesus."

I absolutely love that that was the most logical answer to her.  Because if anyone has the power to make everyone's lights not work at the same time, He would be it.  And I guess if you go beyond my answer, her answer is utlimately right.

Have you ever done this?

I have a question.  I took Damon in for a checkup yesterday.  When we were finished, the doctor handed me a lab slip and told me to take Damon in for some routine bloodwork.  I don't think I have ever done this with my other two kids.  So now I am thinking, is this something that is necessary?  Because taking a 16 month old in to have blood drawn for no particular reason is not high on my do to list.  Have any of you done this with your kids?

Sunday morning

Kelton's church clothes are ridiculous and have been for quite some time.  He has these size 2T pants with a waistband that has always been way too big.  A year or so ago, we had to have a safety pin on both sides to hold them up.  Now we only need a pin on one side.  However, he is taller now and so when the pants are pulled up on his waist where they should be, they are a bit on the geeky short side.  As if that is not bad enough, when he outgrew his size 2T shirt, we opened up a 3T shirt from the same brand.  It was wider than the 2T, but not any longer.  So, for some time he has been wearing this short dress shirt that barely covers his safety-pinned-up highwater pants.  The only reason he could pull it off was because he is... well... three.

It was time for Kelton to get a new church outfit.  Isn't he handsome?

It's nice to have him in clothes with some growing room, but actually fit.

And because we can't leave anyone out when the camera is on...

How I love each and every one of those three little faces!

First day of School

Natalie has been back in school for a full week.  She is in first grade this year and her teacher is Ms. Salazar.  She seems very nice and Natalie really likes her.  Here she is right before going out to catch the bus.

Kelton had to have his turn in front of the camera too.  Just look at that face...it deserves a picture too.

Natalie came home from school toward the end of the week and started talking to me about Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.  I know that she has absolutely no idea who these people are.  But she told me that she doesn't like Lady Gaga (good thing) and that she likes Justin Bieber because he rocks.  It made me laugh to hear my 6 year old say that.  I asked her if she even knew who those people are.  She looked at me and said, "no."  Silly girl.  Sometimes I wish there was a way to shut out the influence of other kids...  Luckily she is only six, and will still listen to her mother.

Proof our kids are smarter than we were at their age

Remember when you were a kid and you used to use blankets, sofa cushions, and whatever else you could find to make one of these...?

And what did you call this thing?

Well, Natalie (and now Kelton) has a different name for it.  She came running to tell me that I had to come see her.... habitat.  Huh?  I went to look and found this.  I had to smile.  And she actually knows what a habitat is and could tell you about them.  Thank you kindergarten.  I think I learned a few letters when I was in kindergarten.

Which is why, to me, that is just a fort.

Pictures that make me smile...every time

Really, no explanation needed.  This is just Kelton and his crazy eyes.

 

 You could chalk this one up to Damon's awesome fashion sense, but actually, it's just chalk. Sidewalk chalk. He loves to eat it. And I actually mean, eat.

I was trying to take a picture of Natalie.  She is on the floor behind Kelton.

Hermit crabs

We got the kids hermit crabs last month.  Nate and I had gone on a date and were at the mall and saw them there.  Nate wanted to get them... I ended up agreeing... and we brought two hermit crabs home with us.  Natalie likes them.  Kelton likes them, but won't hold them.  Natalie has been pinched by both of them (one time was completely her fault) and doesn't hold them a whole lot anymore.

 Above: Wall.E   Below: Rapunzel 

You can probably figure out which crab belongs to which child based on the names.



Another new toy

I guess since I mentioned my new toy in the last post, I should mention Nate's too.

He got an iphone this past week.  He could really use it for work, and when he found out that the firm would pay for the monthly data package, he headed over to the Apple Store to get his phone--as an early birthday present.  But then the phone was going to cost twice as much as we thought because neither of our phones were due for an upgrade.  So, then what happens?  The firm says they will just buy the phone for him.  Well, I guess we know for sure that the people at work like Nate or they wouldn't be buying him a $500 phone. (Yes, that's what that thing cost them.  Insane.  Completely insane.)

A clean floor

So I finally figured out how to keep my floors from being so messy all the time.  (despite the three tornados that are constantly blowing through)  Want to know the secret?  All you have to do is buy a super expensive vacuum.

We've had about the cheapest vacuum you can buy since we've been married.  It worked okay.  Then after a few years it broke and we replaced it with the same vacuum.  It worked okay too.  Then one day I realized that is smelled aweful when I vacuumed and that more dirt was probaby coming back out of it into the air than was being vacuumed up.  True, the bag was full and needed replacing, but I was officially sick of having a crappy vacuum.  Nate had been wanting me to get a Dyson since way back when he was working at Circuit City (they sold them there).  So, we've been saving a little each month since January to buy this...

I love this thing.  It's actually fun to vacuum with.  It picks up so much stuff.  And... you can't vacuum if the floor is covered in toys.  So I've been a lot more on top of picking things up.  Because my $400 is not going to sit unused in the closet.  If you spend that much on a vacuum, you are somewhat obligated to use it.  So, messy floor problem solved.

On another note, I had what was probably my first conversation with Damon.  You know how you talk to babies, even though they don't talk back, and then one day they actually answer you?  Today I was playing with Damon and I asked him, "Do you want to eat some lunch?"  Damon came over to me and answered "Cracker.  Mmmm."  (he says cracker like "ka-kuh")  It was short and simple, but I think its the first time he's reponded with words to something I've said to him.  It was really cute.  But he aparently thinks anything you eat is a cracker because I gave him green beans and he called them crackers the whole time he ate.

Birds, Dancing, Movies, and Natalie says

Here are some random things from our month of June.  We've had a nest right above our front door the whole month.  We had some birds build a nest a few months ago, but aparently, they weren't very talented nest builders because both their eggs ended up falling out and breaking.  Kind of sad.  But our most recent bird build a very nice nest and sat there day and night until her babies hatched.  I first noticed the babies on the 28th, but I think they had probably been there (under the mother) for longer than that because they weren't very small babies.

This cute little guy...

really is the most awesome dancer in the world.  I was going to take a video with my phone to post on here so you could see for yourself, but I discovered that my newer phone doesn't do videos!  So you will just have to believe me.  All babies are cute when they dance.  But I have to laugh out loud every time I see Damon dance.  He moves just his hips back and forth from side to side.  Usually, his hands will be on something and he will stick his little bum out and then his hips will go all the way to one side then bump all the way over to the other side.  Back and forth.  It is so funny.  And it never gets old.  His vocabulary is also expanding.  He says "cracker" very well.  He annunciates "no" so well that sometimes I can't tell if one of the other kids said it.  Oh, and "stop!"  is one of his new favorites.  He usually says this-- not when something is being done to him, but when Natalie and Kelton are doing something to each other, or if they are fighting.  Hmmm, do you think he hears me say that to them several (hundred) times a day?  He even has the intonation down.  It makes me laugh.

Last Saturday (which I guess was technically in July) I took Natalie and Kelton to see Cars 2 in the theater.  It was the first time any of us had seen a movie in 3D.  Nate stayed home with Damon.  He wasn't too sure about watching a 3D movie because he was afraid it might trigger a migraine.  I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed with the 3D.  It was okay, but I think the technology still has a ways to go.  And the glasses are a little more than annoying.  Natalie liked the movie--she's easy to impress.  I saw her checking over the top of her glasses a few times to make sure things weren't really coming out of the screen toward her.  Kelton was not so sure.  I can't tell if he likes seeing movies in the theater.  Or maybe this movie was a little too intense, or maybe he just wasn't too happy to miss his nap.  He was really good during the whole movie, but this is him shortly after we got home...

Then yesterday (hmm...also not in June) Natalie and I had some funny conversations.  We were playing Uno and I looked over at her and it just hit me how pretty she is.  So I said,

"Natalie, you are so beautiful."
N: "Yeah, and I'm so tan too."
Me: (I laughed) "Yes, you are so tan."  (she tans very quickly playing outside in the sun)
N: "Except I wish that I was peach like you, and not tan."

If only the rest of the world felt that way... :)  Actually, I really stopped caring a long time ago about having tan skin.  I will just have to start pointing out to people that my legs aren't white.  They're peach.  Sounds better.

Then, when I took Natalie in to her room at bedtime, I said,

"Guess what we are going to do tomorrow?"
N: "What?"  (real excited)
Me: (motioning with my arm to her messy floor that was cleaned the day before) "This."
N: (somewhat jokingly) "But I didn't do it.  Damon did."
Me: "Damon didn't do this."
N:  "Yes he did.  He's out of control!"